A social contract with the ancestors - culture and ecosystem services in Southern Madagascar
Summary
We investigate the role of culture in sustaining essential ecosystem
services in the arid and erratic climate of an agropastoral landscape in
southern Madagascar.
Our fieldwork and interviews in Ambovombe subprefecture in Androy addressed land use, agropastoralism, livelihood institutions and their moral basis. Our analysis points to the interdependence of cultural practices and ecosystem services: sacred forests, crop pollination, subsistence farming, cattle economy and societal transition and purification rituals.
We posit a social-ancestral contract that works as a moral attractor structuring and sustaining the agropastoral ecosystem services system. The contract between living and nonliving clan members underpins the cultural
practices and rituals that regulate the vulnerable agropastoral system.
We conclude that the well-being values of the inhabitants of the south
of Madagascar depend upon moralities that lend legitimacy and stability
to the management of the social–ecological processes that precondition
ecosystem services production. Neither ecosystem nor culture delivers
ecosystem services to society. Ecosystem services are generated by an
interdependent social–ecological system in which knowledge, practice,
and beliefs coevolve: culture is a key factor in their generation and
persistence.
The study suggests these are significant interdependences
to consider in dynamic analyses of ecosystem service production.
